The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for segmenting a set of media data using a set of social networking data.
A digital video recorder (DVR), sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder (PVR), is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. DVRs have changed the way people interact with television. The user's task has changed from (a) finding something to watch from 100+ channels to (b) finding something to record from 10,000+ weekly shows. By monitoring shows users watch and by providing an interface for rating shows, DVRs construct user profiles that allow them to recommend and automatically record programs.
Currently, many of the programs that are recorded on DVRs may be analyzed by retrieval applications that use visual, audio, and transcript data so that the programs may be segmented and indexed in order for a user to find and record specific video clips that match requests in the users' profiles. Thus, these retrieval applications offer an environment where users interact with whole programs and video clips organized by topic.